| Mexico
City, April 1, 2006, 8:05 am
Hello from Mexico City - A Relaxing Evening
in Coyoacán
Last night after our big first discovery
of Mexico City I had a couple of hours of rest before Vanessa
and her mom took me to one of the most picturesque areas in the
city: Coyoacán, an area located south of the downtown core.
The traffic to get there, as you can imagine, was absolutely incredible
– 4 lane streets with no markings, people squeezing in and
out between cars as they pleased, trucks cutting in right in front
of us with just millimeters to spare…
Fortunately we made it without a scrape and we finally got to our
destination: the well-preserved colonial area of “Coyoacán”
whose name literally means “Place of the Coyotes”. Sure
enough, in the center of the Jardín Centenario there is a
big fountain featuring two coyotes.
The fountain featuring the famous coyotes
Coyoacán is one of the most historic areas of Mexico City
and almost 5 centuries ago, Hernán Cortés, Mexico’s
conquistador, and his Indian mistress “La Malinche”
spent a lot of time here. Today the whole area is full of cafés,
restaurants and bars, and there are a variety of crafts and food
markets to be visited here.
Three famous personalities had their homes here and all three buildings
have been turned into museums. The house of Mexico’s most
famous muralist, Diego Rivera, has been turned into a museum. His
one-time wife, Frida Kahlo, also lived in Coyoacán and spent
most of her life in this house and eventually died here. Her ex-husband
Rivera donated the house to the public in 1955, shortly after Frida’s
death.
The beautiful Jardin Centenario
Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, also lived in a house
in the Coyoacán area after he had lived with Diego Rivera
and Frida Kahlo. Trotsky invested great efforts to safety-proof
his house to protect him from Stalin’s assassins, yet in May
of 1940 his house was attacked and machine-gunned for twenty minutes.
Then 3 months later Trotsky was fatally wounded after having been
stabbed with an ice pick. So Coyoacán has some pretty interesting
historic tidbits to offer.
We sat down in a quaint café next to the Jardín Centenario
and had some snacks. I enjoyed a crepe with a variety of syrups
such as strawberry, mango and blueberry. Vanessa’s best friend,
whom she has known since they were 12 years old, and her boyfriend,
a sociologist, joined us. There was lots of noise: live music coming
at us from behind us in the restaurant, from the restaurant next
to us and from the street musicians that would stop right in front
of our table.
Views of Coyoacán
Social sciences always hold great interest for me, so I took advantage
of the opportunity of talking with a sociologist. We had a very
interesting conversation about how tough it is to find a job in
his field under a government that has a "neoliberal" agenda.
According to him, the social sciences are not funded very well in
Mexico, but a lot of funding is dedicated to private universities
for engineering and science projects. He also gave me a quick overview
of Mexico’s political parties, very interesting since national
elections are coming up on July 2 of this year.
After our animated discussion we returned to rest up for another
big day of discoveries tomorrow.
Useful Books:
Related Articles:
Mexico 2006 - My cultural immersion
experiment
Hello from Mexico City - First impressions
Hello from Mexico City - A skyscraper,
a little horse and a government pawn shop
Hello from Mexico City - The Zócalo,
the Cathedral, a healing ritual and a university dedicated to a
16th century female poet
Hello from Mexico City - A relaxing
evening in Coyoacán
Hello from Mexico City - Exploring the
Paseo de la Reforma, de Bosque de Chapúltepec and a nice
evening in San Angel
Hello from Cuernavaca - Arrival and
first impressions
Hello from Cuernavaca - Getting to know
my B&B hostess Marta Elena: A true riches to rags story
Hello from Cuernavaca - My first day
learning Spanish and two local icons: the Robert Brady Museum and
the Jardín Borda
Hello from Cuernavaca - A lovely dinner
in a garden paradise
Hello from Cuernavaca - An excursion
to Las Estacas, checking out orchids and a meeting at El Cafecito
Hello from Cuernavaca - An excursion
to Lake Tequesquitengo and a visit to the doctor
Hello from Cuernavaca - A conversation
with Andy Grater, local B&B owner and President of the Newcomers
Club
Hello from Cuernavaca - A presentation
about ecology at the Newcomers Club Meeting
Hello from Cuernavaca - Opening of a
South African photo exhibition and a visit to the Palacio de Cortés
Hello from Taxco - The city that silver built
Hello from Taxco during Semana Santa - The
famous Palm Sunday Procession
Hello from Cuernavaca - A new language
school, visiting 'Casa Vamos' and an evening with a very sad ending
Hello from Cuernavaca - My most intense
day: more language studies, 3 interviews, a guided eco-hike and
dinner at the Marco Polo
Hello from Cuernavaca - A day outing
to the enchanting mythical village of Tepoztlan
Hello from Cuernavaca - My last day
of school and a visit to Cuernavaca's Spring Fair
Hello from Taxco - An eerie experience: Visiting
Taxco's famous Good Friday procession
Hello from Taxco and Cuernavaca - Interviewing
one of the penitentes and enjoying my last day in Mexico
Related Interviews:
Presenting:
Ruben Córtes from Morelos Trails - Local adventure sports
and cultural guided tour operator, expert on Morelos and Cuernavaca
Presenting: Pablo
Buitrón from Fundacion Comunidad, helping local
women empower themselves
Presenting: Jorge Torres from
the Cetlalic Alternative Language School - Learning Spanish with
cultural, social and political awareness
Presenting: Hermilo Brito
from the Ideal Language School - Making Spanish learning fun
Helpful links:
Mexico
Tourism Information
State
of Morelos Tourism Organization
Official
website of the City of Cuernavaca tourism
|
